There are two modes, Online and Offline mode. When the program starts,
it will be in Offline mode.

The user can enter Online mode with a button press (or a configuration option which would automatically enter Online mode. The program would then connect to the server and download a snapshot of the book information. From this point until the program is closed, features which require Online mode will be available (see below). A refresh button would allow the re-downloading of the information in case the user felt the information was out of date. Except for manual refreshing, the program will work with the data as it was at the time of the download and will not contact the server after this point.

Only information about books actually in the user's list(s) will be saved to disk (which allows most options to be done in offline mode). When the user next enters Online mode, the program will also check to see if any of the books in the list have updated or changed information and will update the local copy of the information accordingly.

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Program Features
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* User will see a list of their books in a list window with minimal information (default: columns for title and author). User, however, can configure which columns to display and can sort by any column. This can display the user's full list or the results of a filter operation (see below)

* User can click any item in the list window and will see the thumbnails and full information for any book in their list in separate windows (both thumbnail and full info window can be shown or hidden with a menu option).

* User can add a book to their list [online mode only]

* User can remove a book from their list

* User can specify a location on the hard drive or removable media to associate with a given book

* User can choose to display in the book list only those books which satisfy a given set of filter criteria

* User can make the program move the files for a given book into either a .ZIP file or a folder, whose name will be based on the fields for the book, e.g. the name could be specified as [%AuthorEN%] %NameEN%.zip. This operation can be carried out on single books or large batches of books. Due to licensing concerns, .RAR files can be read but not written; this means the program can, if desired, move the files out of a .RAR archive and into a .ZIP archive. All archives produced by the program will be only in the .ZIP format.

* User can make the program add an information file to the ZIP file or folder for a book or batch of books. This information file (info.txt) will look like the following:

* User can instruct the program to scan directories. If a folder or a .ZIP file is found which contains an info.txt which was produced by the program, the program will add it to the database [online mode only]. If the book already exists in the database, the user will be prompted if they want to change the file location associated with that book (there will be Yes, No, Yes to All, No to All options) [online mode not required if the book is already in their list].

This feature makes it easy to share files among Doujin Manager users -- as long as the sender is including the info.txt in the ZIPs he sends, any user of the program need only instruct Doujin Manager to scan the directory the .ZIP file resides in, and the book will be added to their file list. It also makes it easy to move files -- for example, if you burn a bunch of doujin to CD, as long as you include the info.txt you can have the program scan the CD and it will automatically update the file location info, so the doujim manager knows which CD the file is on.

* User can export a full/partial list, in either a human-readable format or a format designed to be imported by other Doujin Manager users.

* Users can import a list from another Doujin Manager user [online mode only]. Once imported, they can browse this list as they would their own. They can also do things like display only the books which are in the other user's list but not their own, and filter/search from there as well.

Here is the current layout. The main window is missing a menu and some buttons for functionality, etc., but this should give a general idea of how the program will work. I think the book information window is virtually finalized.

As mentioned, either or both of the sub-windows (thumbnail and book info) can be hidden if desired.

Did anything ever happen with this project? I've been meaning to write my own file manager for a long time, but never got around to it. If you have no interest in continuing, perhaps you would be willing to share the source?

Please be sure to address "database spoofing" problems by rogue users trying to repeatedly submit subtle bad changes to the database. Since you use a moderator-approval system to finalize changes to the database, the moderating team can be overwhelmed by someone submitting sets of bad data from different accounts and IP addresses (easy enough to get). The rogue user would find it convenient to swap in and out various sets of "info.txt" articles for each batch of bad data submissions. By doing so, it prevents the moderators from fixing the problem by simply disallowing all input from one specific user since the rogue user tries to submit just enough data to hide in the crowd of good users.

Perhaps use of the offline/online program should be reserved for your VIP members. That will both enhance security of the website from spoofing and give more intrinsic value to the VIP status. Certainly, during the beta trial period, this may be necessary. Also, if you allow full downloading, the bandwidth cost to you may exceed your ISP's max Quota for the next 2 months due to the large size of images. So you would have to limit the downloads to just the thumbnails that already exist.

More esoteric prevention techniques might require online submissions to use HTTPS to prevent the case where a rogue person with root access can craft data packets.

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If the feature was granted to all users, in actual usage, I suspect many users would simply use the program to download the entire mugimugi database and then use it offline without ever submitting any changes.

The significant downside of all online databases is that their value lies almost wholly in the database. Thus, someone could download the Mugimugi Database and then create their own website named "Better Faster Mugimugi Database by Kimmo". This site would then compete with mugimugi despite having done none of the upfront investment and work (a typical situation american companies have versus the mainland china's new companies).

Anime fandom has all kinds of fans. If you let out the entire database in one convenient package, then that scenario described above might happen. A way to prevent this is to allow the program to only download just enough data to perform searches. However, the user would be able to enter data for all positions which would then be uploaded when the user connects the next time to mugimugi. Various other strategies exist of course. But I think that the offline program should be tied to the database to prevent your database from being "stolen" and resurrected on a competing website in either english or a different language.

Personally I would love to see a Manager program out there but some things in this thread make me question directions one would want to take.

I can understand why you wouldn't want the database to be stolen but at the same time it would be nice should the site ever go down like the other day or disappear should you no longer decide to keep it going that it still exists in some format somewhere for people to still use for preservation uses if nothing else.

I've considered a manager program though I don't program myself but always wondered in something like MAME32 could be modified to be used with the current API. I would imagine there would be some roadblocks but I would also guess having the majority of the source already defined and modifying for this environment is a heck of a lot easier than coding from scratch.

Never thought of a local doujinshi manager program. That's a VERY interesting idea. I'm a developper but unfortunately I don't have a lot of time, but maybe I'll try something

(I'm looking for the API documentation, but I didn't find it btw)

Three things comes to mind as I'm typing :
- Read-only : right. Read/write : wrong. IMO a read/write manager should be done and used only by mugimugi & mods.
- It would be nice to use such a manager to catalog a hard drive & removable discs containing doujinshi scans. But that's quite a hard work to develop something like that.
- An iOS/Android/[put your phone OS here] client would be nice, if it can work in an offline mode. I'm thinking here of when I'm in Japanese shops, trying out to figure what I already have or not, and what the heck is that doujinshi I'm currently holding

It would be an interesting app for jailbroken cellphones that could make use of the cellphone scan of the doujin cover to look in the database. Each VIP would have an additional checkbox available on the doujin info page for "I have this item". In this way, the VIPs could keep track of what they have.

Well I can say that there is applications on the way, not by me but by someone who requested special API access. It's an long way off he told me thought.

Anyhow the application most likely can't be ported to cellphones anyway except Windows due it supporting C#, iphone have on other hand allowed support for MONO ( Open version of C# ) a few weeks ago so it's possible iphone could theoretically be supported to.

But in the end the application in question is just an manager to easier work, browse, sort and read your files. Whenever that thing comes out on other hand I don't know.

Supposedly someone is writing some doujinshi manager application after all. Sorry I don't know much but he just told me he wanted more API functions and other things, might consider expand the API if I have time.

Can try to mail back and ask for more info about the app later on if he plan to release it and such things. But maybe someone actually can take the time to write one now.

And I mentioned it before in another thread, but I'm planning to write a plugin to import doujindb data using the api. ComicRack has alot of neat features, for instance smartlists: I can create a smartlist for artist "Kisaragi Gunma," and it will not only show me all that artists doujin, but also magazines that he has contributed to (assuming the metadata has been set/imported).

Would doujinDB provide a way to download tested working scripts for the Comicrack program? That way, if members here make a script, it could be made available for others to use if that member allows that. Gradually, scripts could evolve and get better if there was a focal point like that to attract attention for development.

AnimeJanai Wrote:Would doujinDB provide a way to download tested working scripts for the Comicrack program?

Well ... maybe?
Or maybe not. Why would i need scripting support? I'm going to provide plugin support, with the use of a proper language (java) and not come sort of interpreted proprietary metalanguage.

I'll as I have hinted before will recode the entire site, and keep away from PHP, move to ASP.NET sure many fan-boys will probably hate me forever but in reality coding pages in MVC3/ASP.NET is just time saving, easier to manage and not to mention a LOT of things you get for free.

Anyhow with this change I will rewrite the entire service aspect for it, for now I'm not sure how I will do it yet. If I will work with VS* Standard or just expose the entire database for reading.

To code towards this front end if I use VS* Standard it will just like you have total access to all classes and libraries, and start up to code towards it in VS with C# will be seconds of work.

However I have no clue how easy it will be to code for other platforms, I know there is libraries written to use VS* services but I dunno how good they are. Anyone who have experience with this?

Anyhow if I do this, the API system for those who can actually fully implement it will be a joke to use.

But I have not decided yet what type of sharing I will do, the database way or the service object way.

To share the database way I don't need to do more then just setup what to be shared and things like that with some extra methods, for me it's a mater of some hours work. The entire service way will be much more work but more secure as nobody outside will be able to hammer the server to no end.

No mater what, I will throw up the service and let it run weeks before the site actually swap and the old system dies. Just want to hear input from others here about it.

just realised this is the most viewed thread of the forum and there is still no way to import the tags to comickrack or any other app that i know of. what you guys using? (les't hope there is better ways than copypasta)